My rocket is bigger than yours...

[FastCargo 412]

As my interest has resurged in rocketry, I've been amazed at the advances in High Power Rocketry (or HPR, or LDRS).

 

This was done almost 2 years ago in honor of the Moon landing...you REALLY need to see the beginning to get an idea of how big a 1/10 scale Saturn V is:

 

 

and the related article:

 

The story of the biggest scale model rocket ever built

 

Wish I had seen this in person...other videos really show how LOUD this thing was when it flew.

 

And this is a hobby...

 

FC

[Slartibartfast 153]

That is one serious big rocket for a model... thats bigger than some surface to surface missiles...!!!

[Siddley 9]

Absolutely bloody awesome.

 

Amateur\model rocketry was kind of stifled at birth in the UK when the government decided that even commercially manufactured solid fuel motors were 'explosives' - idiots

 

That didn't stop me making solid fuel rockets when I was a kid, but most of mine exploded because I didn't understand the chemistry very well. It's amazing I didn't kill myself...

 

Things changed in the 80's when the government had a rare moment of sanity and decided that Estes weren't making WMD's after all. I think you need an explosives licence for motors larger than a certain class ( E, F ? something like that ) but it's not difficult to get.

 

My interest has always been with liquid fuel. I would LOVE to make a liquid fuel motor ( although I don't have any illusions that I'm clever enough to make one that could work properly and still be light enough to fly )

 

I'd got some plans to make a NOS hybrid as a stepping stone, but never got further than buying the NOS - my little machine shop has to justify itself by making money ( although I don't find working on firearms as a job to be a great hardship )

[+streakeagle 866]

I love model rocketry. Never got past building D-engined birds, but I converted the Estes Commanche 3 stage kit to be all D engines and had a blast :)

http://archive.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/est_comanche3.shtml

 

Can't wait until my son is ready to build his first rocket.

 

As a kid, my first rocktet was this one:

http://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_est_obital_transport.shtml

 

The hobby shop owner said I was too young to build it myself, especially since it was my first one (I was in the 3rd grade).

I brought it back a week later fully built and not too bad for a 3rd grader.

 

My favorite one based on looks and flight excitement was a boost-glider, the Sky Dart: http://www.rocketreviews.com/reviews/all/oop_est_skydart.shtml

Mine flew very well and looked as good as the kit photo (was in 6th grade by that time).

 

Although I truly loved and flew the X-Ray more than any of them: http://www.spacemodeling.org/jimz/k-18.htm

 

I also had a molded Estes RTF X-15 that was great for low altitude easy recovery in small launch areas.

http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/77estcov.html

 

My brother made a beautiful Mosquito, but we used the biggest engine for the first flight (A10-3T same as for my X-15) and we never saw it again.

 

In the Navy, beside the Commanche, I made my own all-aluminum folding fin, spin stabilized, shoulder launched rockets.

Go here for some photos: http://sites.google.com/site/streakeagle68/hobbies/rockets

There is a pick of me with my Commanche as well as some cardboard prototypes before design failures forced me to go all-aluminum.

The photo that of the black field is a charred black field... big fire resulting from the erratic flight of the last cardboard prototype. Fortunately, the Fire Department put it out before it threatened any homes and they didn't charge or fine any of us.

Edited March 21, 2011 by streakeagle

[Derk 265]

Incredible !!!!!

 

Derk

[+Typhoid 231]

Awesome!!!

 

We get out and do some model rockets every now and again. That is outstanding!!

 

(and expen$ive - those engine$ co$t a bundle!!)

[TurtleHawk 6]

Too cool.

My buddy and I considered this idea in the early 90s.

Personal ICBM(s) for annoying neighbors...

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Okay, I was into this, but did something really different. Back in the early 90s, I had an idea ... pure shiny rocket.

 

I started with a very tiny one, the smallest Estes tube, about 6" long, and wrapped the finished tube with sticky backed shiny aluminum mylar. Same with fins. It was a rough first start.

 

Within a year, I was rolling my own body tubes out of large sheets of strong art paper, epoxying and adding a bit of fiberglass for strength in loaded areas including the ends where tubes want to start unrolling. I rolled the paper around standard Estes tubes (from 1.6" to 2.4" I think were the sizes, its been a long time now) as a standard size guide, then poked out the Estes tube leaving a strong paper tube, secured by tape until the epoxy cured. I then sanded the seam for the next step.

 

Next step, I would lay out a sheet of *very* thin mirror finish mylar, brand name TOPIX found in art and hobby stores, of any colour you could imagine -- it came in rolls of purple, red, gold, blue, green, aqua, copper, etc..., infinite list of shiny mirror reflective colours. This thin Topix material was easily damaged however, so I placed the thin shiny stuff between two sheets of thicker clear mylar. I had tried acetate, but found mylar to be much stronger and less temperature susceptible. I would then roll this sandwich around the paper rocket tube -- very tightly. A simple line of clear 3M tape front to back along the seam secured the whole mylar wrapping, thus securing the paper body underneath. The result was a mirror finish body tube of deep colour, the Topix fully protected from any damage or temperature changes (crinkling under expansion or contraction) by the mylar surrounding it.

 

Fins:: I cut balsa fins, nothing new here. But then took double sided clear tape and lined rows of tape covering the fin surfaces. I then laid out flat that very thin Topix coloured mylar -- shiny side down, and lay down the fin and double sided tape on top. edit *- - (I also epoxied various mylars to balsa -- I forgot how I did this now....its been too long. ...Anyways, my fins also had a mirror finish as well, of any colour. Interestingly, the tape seemed to provide a sort of protection against bending, although the unprotected metal was easily damaged. All in all, everything seemed to come together in a synergy kind of deal, but it took a long time and lots of experiments.

 

I then epoxied the fins to a temporary Topix wrapped tube, with a massive fillet of epoxy. That is the key here. I let cure, slid off the Topix with fins attached, then peeled off the Topix leaving pure metal mylar on the concave shaped cured epoxy. I then attached the fins to my rockets with double sided tape, the tape mating between the concave Topix coated epoxy and the mylar body tube.

 

The theory behind taped rocket parts is design and build for it...here plastic on plastic, and most important, the observation that one NEVER "slides" tape off a surface; one must PEEL tape off. My designs would never allow sliding, thus the tape held the fins firmly in place, as well as the body tube wraps, and the removable engine mount and removable launch rail guide (more on them below). The tape peeled *only* when I did the peeling to remove something or to do damage repair.

 

 

"D" Engine mount -- and recovery system: It was all one combined removeable system for use in all my rockets of the same build style and base tube size. The engine mount was three tubes....

 

...the first tube was of course the tube the D engines slid into, very short, about the length of a D engine. Using standard Estes engine rings, I mated this tube to what I called the firetube. The firetube was a long Estes tube that carried the ejection gases to the fiberglass wadding (yea, and its re-usable). I cut large balsa rings to mate the firetube to two (2) short lengths of the same stock Estes body tube that I rolled my paper body tubes around, one very short tube length ring in front near the recovery system end of the firetube, and at the rear, a somewhat longer length. The two tubes allowed the engine mount to be inserted into the rear of the body tube. I secured it by a most fascinating method. The rear end of the rear mating tube was wrapped on the outside by a short but thick layer of shiny gold sticky mylar. This provided a stop when inserting the engine mount, and prevented forward thrusting of the mount. The inside of this rear mating tube was covered by the same gold sticky mylar. This gave some heat protection, but the main thing, a small strip of shiny gold mylar was used as tape, being stuck to the inside of the rear mating tube's shiny gold mylar coating, and extending out the rear to be folded over onto the outside of the rear of the body tube's mylar wrap, firmly securing the engine mount in the tube and preventing it from moving being ejected back out. Because tape won't slide, I could secure the engine mount with a single small piece of tape.

 

For ejection, the end of the engine mount's firetube had enough space left to -- get this -- insert a pretty shiny gold safety pin at the front of the firetube (epoxy reinforced there), in front of the front firetube's ring. The ejection cord was attached to this pin, and the other end to the nose, for designs that came down in one piece. The parachutes were hexagons cut out of the very thin Topix mylar and of course were shiny mirror finish, and interestingly, I found these to be more reliable on opening than standard "mushy" plastic Estes parachuts, and I never needed baby powder. The fiberglass wadding was also attached to the safety pin, so I never had to hunt down the wadding, it came back still attached to the engine mount.

 

It took a year to develop, but was a fast setup once done. Get to the field, insert the engine mount chute/wadding first, attach to nose (or upper body tube), then strap on the guide rail. More on that later. After flight, remove the engine mount and guide rail and put them on another empty rocket ready to go.

 

Next, nose cones I would wrap the thin weak Topix mylar between two thicker sheets of clear mylar, all in a cone shape, then cut the base of the cone to fit on a tube -- a short length of the Estes tube of the size I rolled my fuselages around, so obviously it will be a good fit. A round balsa plate was epoxied into the base of this as a piston to be ejected from the main body tube (for larger designs, a forward body tube would have this ejection plate. The plate of course would be mylar coated like the fins, as I liked to think it helped heat protections, but mainly it looked good.

 

The whole rocket was shiny mirror finish deep colours from top to bottom, and to a large degree even inside. The engine mount could be removed in seconds and place in another rocket. The launch rod guide was a pair of rings mounted on the ends of a roughly 12"x0.5"x0.5" balsa piece, sanded on top of my body tube to get a perfect concave sanded fit to the body. This sanded area was then epoxied and let cured. One strip of clear tape applied to this ensured a good connection for the launch rings. For a dozen or so rockets like this, I used only one guide rail and one engine mount, but alot more than 3 parachutes because I liked to try different colours of shiny stuff. Everything was reusable, even the fiberglass wadding.

 

In the end, all my rockets used a single D-12-3 as they were heavy. I built them for looks, and launch site functionality, but not flight performance. They were all empty shells, the heart being the single system of engine mount and recovery in one package. These rockets didn't get high enough to need more than 3 seconds of coasting, and I didn't want to lose them haha. They were for looks, but man did they look.

 

I built a "black brant" looking sounding rocket type design, with alternating gold Topix sheets and just flat black painted paper appearing between them. Black and gold body with alternating black and gold sided fins -- all the gold a mirror finish contrasting with the flat black. I wish I took photos of these now, but never did. Oh well.

Edited March 22, 2011 by Lexx_Luthor

[FastCargo 412]

Lexx, what is it with you and shiny objects?

 

Streak, yea, my model rocketry experience was pretty similar (X-15, Astron Transport,etc) though I wasn't a big fan of payloaders. Even did the handheld 'tube' launch rocket when I was young and stupid...however, I didn't set anything on fire!

 

But instead of 3 "D"s in series, I did 4 "D"s in parallel on a 1/5 scale Estes Patriot:

 

http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/catalogs/estes92/92est2.html

 

Technically, I was heading into High Power Rocketry...that thing roared off the pad and was awesome in flight. She had a couple of successful flights before I retired her...she sits as a display piece.

 

I was big into scale rockets, Saturn V, Saturn IB, Bomarc, Tomahawk, etc. Custom built a lot of rockets too, even scale models.

 

It's funny, hearing your story about setting something on fire makes me lean even more toward being an NAR member. Unlike when I was a kid, as an older adult, there are serious liability concerns. I like the idea of having cheap insurance if something happens ($60 a year for NAR membership which includes 2 million dollar insurance policy...not worried about hurting someone, but a fire...yea I could see that in a dry TX summer).

 

Also, though model rocketry in general has been in decline, HPR has increased a lot, and all sorts of cottage industries have sprung up. There are companies that make replicas of old Estes kits, or specialized parts, or conversions, etc. Just bought myself an Astron Transport...I plan to use the info to 'upscale' it to something larger. And now with modern printers, decals are no longer a hindrance...just make your own!

 

FC

[+Julhelm 266]

I had the Estes SR-71, a small missile like thing, one called Bail-Out which we used to launch a little teddy bear sky high to see whether or not his parachute would deploy properly (sometimes it didn't which looked funny) and a swastika-adorned V-2 made turned from foam. I also bought a "lifting body" design that didn't really work that well so dad designed his own based on the X-24.

[Skyviper 1,101]

Wow. That was awesome.